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Benefits of Threshold Workouts for Runners

“GogogogoGoGO!” I mumbled to myself, “JUST GO!” I then yelled to drown out the little voice whispering you’ve done well, you can back off… just a bit.

I had less than a mile to go in a threshold run about a week ago. I felt depleted mentally and physically. My glutes burned and my legs felt like dead weight, but I was still pushing hard, flying down the road.

Regularly running threshold workouts will train your body to clear lactic acid from your bloodstream more efficiently and reuse it as fuel on the run. This will allow you to run harder and faster for a longer amount of time. As a marathoner, these runs are an essential tool in my training for every race!

Why Threshold Workouts are Important

A few months ago I wrote a post about the benefits of threshold runs. Recall that these runs need to be performed at an intensity where lactic acid is being produced at steady rate (feel the burn!). Coach Jack Daniels coined the term “one hour race pace” as the pace to use to achieve this intensity which should feel “comfortably hard”. This means you are not running all out, neither are you running just slightly harder than easy pace. You want to feel fatigued, but you should be able to finish feeling strong and wanting more.

This means if it takes you an hour to race a 10k, your 10k race pace should be close to your threshold run pace. For elite runners like Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi, this pace is closer to their half-marathon pace!

Regularly running threshold workouts will train your body to clear lactic acid from your bloodstream more efficiently and reuse it as fuel on the run. This will allow you to run harder and faster for a longer amount of time. As a marathoner, these runs are an essential tool in my training for every race!

Types of Threshold Workouts

Steady/Continuous

Steady, or continuous, tempo workouts are runs done at threshold pace without any rest intervals. The quality portion of a basic steady threshold run should be 20 to 30 minutes, according to Coach Daniels. However, many coaches and runners do longer tempo runs at a pace slower than true threshold pace. This helps build a good sense of maintaining a strong pace for an extended period of time. This also requires you to really focus on the run to be able to maintain the correct pace, as you are likely to do in a race situation. Not only are these runs physically demanding, but they can be very mentally draining as well. This fatigue will help prepare you for the late miles of a race when exhaustion starts to creep in.

Below is a table of adjusted paces for long threshold runs, your VDOT number can be calculated at Coach Daniels RunSmart Project:

click to enlarge

Steady tempo runs are not only a key workout in my training cycles, but one of my favorite workouts. During base training, the strong pace is a great way to break up the slower miles that dominate the phase. Also, during the lead up to a goal race they give me a big psychological boost of confidence leading up to a goal race.

Cruise Intervals

Cruise intervals are tempo runs broken up into bite sized pieces. When you run a cruise interval workout, you will run at your current tempo pace for a given time or mileage, then run easy, wash, rinse repeat.

Coach Daniels gives the basic structure for these workouts as running at threshold pace for three to fifteen minutes with one minute of recovery for every five minutes spent at threshold pace. The number of repetitions you perform will depend on the length of the quality portions of the run.

This is a workout with many different variations, used by coaches in different ways. For instance, during my marathon training cycles, using the Hanson’s Marathon Method, I will perform a couple different cruise interval workouts:

Number of Repeats

4

3

2

Repeat

1.5 miles

2 miles

3 miles

Recovery

800m

800m

1 miles

The rest periods will make these runs seem easier, since they will give your body some time to clear lactate from your system as well as provide a mental break.

To Cruise or not to Cruise…

So which of these two is the “best”, you ask?

Well, that depends. Alex Hutchinson reviewed a study trying to determine an answer to this question. The study shows that both will end up accomplishing the same goal and suggests that training history plays a role in which type of workout will benefit the runner most.

An example Alex uses to explain this is “someone who has been ‘jogging’ five days a week for a few years [then starts] doing hard interval sessions a couple of times a week, and you’ll see dramatic improvements. But if you have someone who has been doing sprint training but no sustained running for a few years, and then adds a tempo run and a long run each week, you might see equally dramatic improvements.”

For my marathon training cycles, steady tempo runs are done on a weekly basis, increasing the mileage throughout the program. Cruise intervals come into play during the second half, giving me two threshold workouts a week. These runs are also higher in mileage than speed sessions, making the training more marathon specific.

Helpful Tips

Coach Daniels recommends the quality mileage of threshold runs should be up to 10% of the week’s total weekly mileage. The threshold portion of cruise intervals should be at least 4 miles or 30 minutes. Continuous threshold runs can range from 20 minutes to 60 minutes, maxing out at 8 miles (or one hour), up to 10 miles for more advanced runners.

You should try to perform tempo runs on a relatively flat course with good footing and favorable weather. You want your sole focus to be on maintaining a steady pace, not worrying about the terrain or other conditions.

Threshold training should be performed once a week, twice if speed work is not an emphasis in the current training cycle. If two threshold runs are to be run in one week, make sure to separate with at least one rest or easy day to reduce the risk of injury.

I always dedicate at least one day a week to threshold training, two days when speed training is not a priority. I try to make it in the middle of the week, so I have a day or two of easy running between a threshold run and my long run. This allows for my legs to recover and feel back to normal(ish) by the time the weekend long run comes around. Here’s what my weekly schedule tends to look like:

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thr

Fri

Sat

Easy

Speed or Thresh

Rest

Threshold

Easy

Easy

Long

When running two tempo workouts in a week, I would recommend doing one workout as a cruise interval session and one as a continuous session. This will slightly vary the training stress as well as keep your training a little more interesting.

Fanning the Flames

With less than a half mile left in that tempo run, I yelled at myself again, “GO! BEAST, GO!” I needed a little boost, a little shot of adrenaline to pull me through.

When I hit that last mile, I let out a loud, exultant roar of a laugh. I had just hit 5:55 for each of the last two miles of ten in a threshold run with the previous miles consistently close to or at the goal pace of 6:00 per mile!

These tough workouts are paying off and the training is all coming together. Trust in your plan, execute the workouts, and the results will astound!

Justin started running in college as a way to take a break from his studies. What started as a study break, grew in to a hobby, then into a full blown passion. He is a volunteer coach with the Prior Lake High School cross country team and runs with the Mill City Running team. When he is not running, you will probably find his nose buried in a training book or out enjoying a beer at one of the many great breweries in the Twin Cities.

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